Coach Trevor Wittman talks about the new lighter Shane Carwin

Following Shane Carwin‘s loss to Brock Lesnar last July, the Colorado engineer decided he needed to make some changes. He pounded Lesnar senseless throughout round one, but for the first time in Carwin’s career, his opponent lasted the full five minutes.

It was a place Carwin had never been to in a real fight. Call it lactic acid build-up, gassing out or something else, the fact remained, something needed to be altered in Carwin’s fight preparation.

Since then, Carwin hired a nutritionist and has cut about 20-25 pounds out of his walking around weight. He also went through neck surgery.

ProMMAnow.com (www.prommanow.com) spoke to Carwin’s trainer and head coach at Grudge Training Center, Trevor Wittman, this week to find out more about Carwin’s new diet, how he looks in the gym at his new weight and what fans can expect to see Saturday night when he steps in the Octagon opposite Junior dos Santos at UFC 131.

Hi Trevor, thanks for speaking with us at ProMMAnow.com. In your opinion, how does Shane look now say to what he looked like before he started his new diet and all this?

He looks great, he’s mentally good, he’s always consistently having energy. Yeah I think the diet was the biggest part for the fueling you know, and having the right fuel in him. A lot of time heavyweights get away with eating what they want because they don’t have to make weight. The first fight we had in the UFC was our second fight together. He actually came to me, he was almost 300 pounds. Our first fight in the UFC was 252 pounds, so… he was light then also. He just got away from it. You know, everybody starts talking about how big the heavyweights are and then people are like, ‘maybe I need to be a little bigger’ so they allow their self to go a little bit. So, I think Shane’s true weight is about 255.

Sometimes you hear about guys losing power when they drop weight. Have you noticed anything like that with Shane?

No, not at all. If you’re cutting unnatural weight and trying to get down to a certain weight class and trying to get lighter, you could lose power. But if you’re just taking off water weight, you actually should be more powerful, you should be a little more flexible. Your power should increase. And the main thing we got the weight down is just not carrying that extra backpack of water.It sucks when you go in there in a fight and you got all this extra weight for no reason, so I think we’re going to see a way better Shane.

Do you know exactly what is the main difference in Shane’s diet?

The main difference in the diet was having a nutritionist who is actually catering to everything that you’re doing; making sure you’re getting the right amount of carbs, the right amount of protein to recover. The whole thing is being able to have the right fuel. You can go in there and put an unleaded fuel into a funny car and that funny car is not going to run the same. So having a nutritionist that knows what he’s doing and focusing it all around what you should be doing for your body type, I mean, man, that’s a good thing.

Do you expect Shane and Junior to keep it on the feet?

It’s one of those things, you can come up with any type of game plan you want to, but that’s a guy that likes to hit people. So, it’s really going to play out in the fight how it goes and we’ve got plan A, plan B and plan C to go in there, but dos Santos is a guy that likes to stand, Shane is a guy that likes to stand, so I think you’re going to see some fireworks on the feet.

How did everything go with Shane’s camp for this fight?

Oh everything was great. You know, Shane does well with long breaks in-between. He’s an older guy and to be able to have that longer break to recover, he just went through his surgery, and to see him back in the gym and have that fire. He’s out here to prove something to his self, not just to the fans, but to his self. He feels like he beat himself in the Brock Lesnar fight, so this guy is on a mission. We had a great training camp and I’m just excited to see him get in there.

Is a rematch with Brock Lesnar something Shane would eventually like to get?

The main thing is, let’s hope Brock gets healthy. I don’t think fighting is on his mind or any of the guys’ minds that are in the division with him because it’s such a serious injury and this is the second time, you know. I think all of our focus is to make sure that Brock is healthy and to be able to enjoy his family and enjoy the rest of his life. And from that point on, if he’s healthy, a rematch or pretty much whatever Dana puts in front of us is a great thing. And you know, the rematch, I feel we beat Brock in that fight and we beat ourself so if people want to see it, let’s make it happen.

A lot of people think this will be a better fight than Brock vs. Junior would have been. What do you think?

I think it will be. After Shane had fought Brock Lesnar I think there was a lot of things going through Brock’s head. You know, he went out there in the Cain fight and was turning his head and showing signs that maybe this isn’t for him. I really feel that Brock has other things he can do and I just don’t feel he’s a fighter after seeing him take punches from Shane, I really feel he was broke. Going in there with Cain, he jumped up, threw a knee and from that point on he was turning his head even before being hit. To me, that shows he didn’t really want to be in there. So by far, in my mind, the way I look at it, heck yeah this is going to be a way better fight. You got a guy in Shane Carwin, he’s not going to back down a bit. You got a guy, dos Santos, he’s not a small heavyweight, but he’s not the big heavyweight, and he don’t back down from no one. So, this is one of those fights. I actually feel dos Santos is the best heavyweight in the world. I actually feel he’s better than Cain. So to be able to go out there and fight the best in the world, that’s what we want to do and that’s what we’re here to do. We want to prove we are the number one guy out there.